Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Less than a year-and-a-half after it cut the ribbon to its 950,000-square-foot facility in Twin Falls, with promises of nearly 400 jobs, Chobani Yogurt announced Tuesday that it was laying off temporary and some regular employees at its Idaho plant.

This morning's Twin Falls Times-News reports that Chobani officials said, "After a thorough and comprehensive review of our business, we made the very difficult but necessary decision to operate our plant at its original design and eliminate certain positions."

A Chobani spokeswoman said she preferred not to disclose how many Chobani employees were laid off.

Chobani has also not disclosed how many people were currently employed at the Twin Falls facility.

But the plant said it would not reduce any production.

"There is no larger story," a company spokesman told the Times-News. "Chobani is far from being in trouble. When we first came to Twin Falls, we hired temporary employees as we ramped up the plant. It's normal to hire temporary employees for temporary work."

Chobani also announced that shift changes were in the works at the plant; instead of two 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, Chobani said it was moving to three eight-hour shifts five days a week.